Hand Made Or Machine Made Rugs? To the untrained eye, it can be difficult to tell the difference between a hand made and a machine made carpet, but there are things to look out for and ways to find out how your rug was made. It is an important factor when buying a rug and it will also affect the best ways to maintain and clean it.
Identifying the Differences in Hand made and Machine Made Rugs
The best way to identify a hand made rug is that there will be imperfections. Some knots will be uneven and patterns will not be completely perfect. The lines may not be completely straight and the colours can change slightly in one area. These imperfections and idiosyncrasies give hand woven carpets their charm. Whereas a machine made carpet will be completely uniform and will have perfect stitching.
Although machine made rugs are significantly cheaper, they not only lack the appeal of a hand woven rug, but they also will not last as long. Hand made rugs can last for many years and their value increases as they age. They can take months or even years to produce, often with a team of people working on it at once. The materials are natural and the wool or silk that is used is very high quality and robust. However, synthetic materials are usually used for machine made rugs. Constructed as quickly and efficiently as possible.
Another good tell-tale sign as to how a carpet was made is the fringe. Machine made rugs have a fringe which has clearly been sewn onto the end of the rug, while hand woven rugs have a fringe which is made up of the warp strings that come out of the end of the rug.
Mass produced, machine made carpets must also be cleaned differently from hand made ones. Although we specialise in hand made Oriental rugs and carpets, we can also clean and repair their machine made counterparts.